Life as a Trophy Wife

As many of you know, since moving to Arizona, finding the right job has been difficult. So, I’ve spent most of my unemployed months lounging by the pool and eating bon bons….

 …..Bahahahah ok ok I can’t keep a straight face while saying that!

There have been NO bon bons.

Haha! All joking aside, there has been some lounging by the pool but mostly just boredom. After the house was unpacked and set up for the most part, I ran out of things to do. I mean even pinterest gets old after awhile, especially when you don’t have the money to do any of the projects I pinned. So what has this girl been doing to keep herself busy??

Well, I’ve done some cooking. I’ve never been that great of a cook in the past- mostly from lack of experience. So, I took this downtime to practice! I have mastered quite a few amazing recipes as well a few doozies.

Spiral Pasta Vegetable Salad

Summer Vegetable Crepes

Corn Chowder

Gazpacho

Asparagus Frittata

Mango Black Bean Quinoa

Roasted Vegetable Stacked Enchilada Casserole

All of the above I HIGHLY recommend. They were delicious! Let me know if you want the recipe for any of them.

I’ve also been trying to learn the manual setting on my new DSLR Nikon. I took an introduction to photography class to try and get a grasp on all the different manual settings. It’s overwhelming at first but I’m still learning how everything works together to create the best picture!

There are several blogs I’ve stumbled across that have photography tutorials and they’ve helped as well! Click the link below the picture to go to the blog.

Digital Photography School Blog

I heart faces blog

My next plan is to take a creative photography class. Thanks to a groupon, I have that already lined up as soon as I get the hang of the shutter speed, aperture and ISO!!

So that's pretty much been my summer! 

That's all about to change though. I am hanging up my trophy wife shoes because... 

I GOT A JOB! Yep! I have been waiting to tell you all and now I finally can! My first day is Monday. I will be working as the dietitian for a home tube feeding company and I am SUPER pumped! I love tube feeding so I know I am going to love this job. I'll have to keep you posted =)

xoxo,

(Almost) Home Sweet Home

I have a serious case of summer ADD. I cannot focus on one thing for very long and I end up with 3 projects going on at the same time. At the end of the day, all I have are various messes all over the house. Its frustrating! Apparently, all I needed these past few weeks was motivation.

My dad came to visit us last week and I wanted to make sure I had the house a close to perfect as I could. That means all the boxes had to be unpacked, all the frames had to be hung on the walls, and all my already started house projects needed to be FINISHED. So, I focused and now we are that much closer to having the house exactly the way I want it! (yay!)

But after all that work, I wanted everyone to see it! The likelihood of anyone coming to visit us in this heat is slim to none. SO, I'm posting some of it here for all to see! (double yay!)

Our first project was to install some ceiling fans in our house. I cannot believe this house has been here this long in one of the hottest states in the country and not a single room had a ceiling fan!! Let me tell you what a difference fans have made in our house. I went from waking up in the middle of the night dripping with sweat to sleeping like a baby to the white noise of our ceiling fan. Neither Hubby nor I had ever installed a fan but everyone tells me how easy it is, so I was confident we could do it.  After trying to install the fans I see now why fans aren't installed in every room.  It was an interesting adventure getting those fans up to say the least... adventure that included trampling around in the attic in 100 degree weather.

Making the hole in the ceiling a little bit bigger...

traipsing around in attic...

finished product!

It works and I'm happy. And not sweaty.

My next project was to recover some particularly awful pillows that came with the couch when Hubby bought it. There are a myriad of pillow cover tutorials online so I chose one of the easiest: the envelope pillow case! (from this super easy tutorial at Rae Gun Ramblings)

 I made the striped accent pillows to go behind our already super awesome turquoise ones (target special!).

I love the look of a million fun patterned pillows on the couch but it makes for a crowded seating area when you're trying to use it for just that: sitting. So, I reluctantly stopped at four pillows on the couch instead of 10.

After the pillow project was completed I went to work on a DIY roman shade for our office window. I am super excited about the way it turned out!

It's an honest to goodness working roman shade made from a super cheap mini blind! Of course from a pinterest found tutorial at 365 days to simplicity blog. Loves it!!

Gallery walls are in style right now and since we have so many picture frames I thought it would be a good idea for us. Luckily, we have a giant blank wall in our hallway that would be perfect for a bunch of frames.

Ours is not 100% done yet, I still want to paint a couple of the frames to make it a little more cohesive. If you attempt to make one, I highly recommend following apartment therapy's recommendations on how to create a gallery wall. The tape measure and masking tape will be your best friends!

Our final project was to figure out what we were going to do with the giant blank wall behind our TV. I had the idea back in Atlanta to decorate with old shutters and we had collected a couple there (Of course we brought them with us!). After showing Hubby some pictures of walls decorated with shutters on pinterest, I had him convinced it would look good to put distressed/weathered shutters on the wall behind the TV. We didn't have enough to cover the wall space so I drove around town to ReStores and Goodwills to find some  more.

We are still trying to decide if we should paint them a color to stand out a little more from the wall. It's a work in progress but I'm happy with how it's shaping up =)

That's it for now but more projects likely to come...

xoxo,

Craftiness is back! Week 8 and 9...

Ok, so I know I am a little behind on posting my weekly crafts. Yeah yeah, so I am waaaaaaay behind. It's been a crazy whirlwind last few weeks. But, never fear! I still managed to be crafty! (I knew you were worried) I decided I'll start with revealing weeks #8 and #9 first and then reveal #10 and #11 at a later date. Keep you all on your toes. Yeah, i didn't realize i was that behind either.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about these crafts! For week 8 I saw a frame on etsy.com that I totally fell in love with and decided that I had to make one for myself! I wrote our first dance song on a picture mat and placed a picture of our first dance inside and Voila! Instant unique picture! Isn't it cool? I wish i had more interesting handwriting though. Mine is a little plain. I tried to dress it up a little by adding some curly cues but it looked forced. So plain Melissa handwriting it was! I still like it.

For week #9, in honor of one of the greatest holidays ever, I made a cute candy dish!

I love it! I used an empty mixed nuts container, covered it with scrapbook paper and added one of the yummiest Hershey's kiss flavor ever- creme de menthe. They taste just like soft Andes mints. YUM. I highly recommend. I think this craft is a very appropriate considering this weekend we're going to party it up for St Patrick's day!! Hope everyone gets to drink a green beer this weekend, if not, I'll drink one for each of you!

Cheers!

Week #6 and #7 crafts

Living in an older house, we have some creaks and cracks for sure. There isn't a lot of insulation despite the recent update our house got before we moved in. That lack of insulation has been really noticeable lately with the temperature drops outside. Last week I noticed a giant gap in one of our windows. The construction workers didn't paint it shut so that we would have the option of opening it. That was nice of them but it created one heck of a draft!

 So I decided to make one of those "draft snakes", a piece of fabric sewed up with some sort of material in it such as gravel, sand or rice to block out the draft.

I think it turned out great!
Now for week #7! I have always loved those plastic white wall flowers but never wanted to pay the outrageous price the stores want for them, so while on pinterest a month or so ago, I found a website with a template for paper wall flowers! So, I decided our guest room could really use some wall flower art =)

 voila! more crafts soon!

Week #4 and #5 of 52

 Whoops!!! I just saw that I didn't upload pictures from last week's craft project! So, this is a combined post- which is semi appropriate considering both of the projects are related! Pinterest has inspired me to want to decorate more for Valentine's day. It started with my usual front door attire. We don't have the best of front doors for wreaths and such since it's glass. So, I've gone to hanging the wreath or door decoration on the wall in the sun room instead of the door. My usual valentine door decoration looks pretty pathetic on the wall:

I found a beaded heart wreath at Target that I liked but it was $20 and so VERY cheaply made that I couldn't bring myself to buy it. So I headed to Michael's to get the fixin's to make something like it. I ended up with this:

 

I like it! Not exactly what I had in my head when I started but it does the job and looks better on the wall in the sun room than the other thing!

Now, this week's craft project was Valentine related as well:

I made a cute paper flag garland from scrapbook paper and bought a few unfinished wooden frames from Michael's for $1 a piece, painted them black and printed the letters off the computer to put in each frame! Voila! So there you go, my valentine crafts! Back to regular, non-holiday related craft this week, stay tuned!

Week #3 of 52...

Drum-roll please!! Its the moment you've all been waiting for!!! (And by you all i mean me and maybe the 1 other person who reads my blog) My big reveal of the project that took me two weeks to complete...
Drop cloth stenciled curtains!

I loooove how they turned out! I came across the idea on (of course) pinterest and decided our dining room totally needed a cheap set of curtains. So, Hubby and I made another trip to The Depot and found a drop cloth on the cheap. I took it home, split it and ran it under the sewing machine to hem it and create a sleeve for the rod. Next was the time consuming part- I used a sponge, black paint and a stencil to create that perfect pattern you see going on up there. Yay curtains!

On a side note, I love how pinterest is taking over the blog world. I think every blog i follow has succumbed to the awesomeness of pinterest. It may seem like I have a love affair going on with this amazing website but I really am just pumped that there is some sort of creative outlet for people get inspired by. The world need more art!

On that, I am going to finish watching the UK Wildcats put those GA Dawgs in their place. GO CATS!
-over and out-
Melissa =)

Addendum: As requested i have included a close up of one of the curtains to see the detail =)

Week #2 craft project

So, it's week #2 in my 52 Crafts in 52 weeks project and I really wanted to have this super awesome project done by tonight but it's taking a lot longer than I thought and I need a few more days to finish it. I'm going to have to save it for next week's project! So until then, here is a substitute craft I did tonight: Cranberry Lime Infused Vodka!

I got the idea from (pinterest, surprise surprise) this really cool blog that I now follow: Fancy Napkin. After letting it infuse for 2 weeks to 2 months it should be ready to drink! I am pumped! I made one several weeks ago that should be ready to drink now. I'll have to let you know how it is =)
-Melissa

Ode to Pinterest

I just want to take a minute to tell you how much I love pinterest and how much it has inspired me since it came into my life a few months ago. I've always been a crafty person but pinterest stimulated some hidden DIY side of me that now knows no limits!! Bless my husband, he has been such a great sport about it all. He has been dragged into countless projects since we moved into our new place! He mandated that I start keeping a list of all my project ideas- which is probably a really good move considering the speed that these project ideas spring up!! A few examples of our pinterest-inspired excursions:

Our DIY back splash project. Didn't Hubby do a FANTASTIC job?

UK ribbon wreath i made for my mom

DIY bathroom mirror frame. Makes the bathroom look SO much better!

Chevron Stripe canvas I painted for my sister's bedroom

Spray painted dollar store vases as our holiday centerpiece!

Handmade black-out-lined curtains, custom length, for a FRACTION of the price of store bought ones!

Wicker Trunk turned into covered bench

Homemade wooden headboard- Thank you Hubby! =)

Modpodged Letter holder

Jewelry Holder out of old frame, screen and drawer pulls!

That's not even all of my pinterest inspired projects! I didn't include my kitchen endeavors... The list could seriously go on and on. But i'll spare you =) To reel my now obsession in and keep me on track without getting overwhelmed with project ideas in my queue, I have decided to do one project a week. That's 52 projects this year. My projects could range from making a piece of furniture out of pallets to finishing a scrapbook page. 52 sounds like a lot- we'll see how this goes! To start the year out right, I completed my first project of 2012 for week one:

A wine cork board out of the millions of corks we have! I have been saving for years. Some of these are my grandmother's too- she had been saving as well and then passed them on to me along with this wine cork board kit! Thanks Granny! Now, to figure out what to do with the rest of the corks I have...

What has everyone else done from pinterest in 2011?

xoxo
Melissa =)